Flare
by HaveYouMetTheFrench
Summary: The Last Time Lady had found - and left - the Doctor. Now travelling alone, Fire is looking for answers, and the truth about the man they call the Oncoming Storm. Can the Children of Time ever convice her to trust the Doctor? And with Trenzalore looming, will it be in time...
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

**Hello!**

**Welcome to the second story in my series, Flare. It follows on almost directly from the first, Ignite, which I reccomend you read first. This story begins within a week or two of the end of Ignite, and will be a slightly different format. **

**With the exception of this chapter and the last, every chapter in Flare will feature a different companion from the revived series, including a short original story of that companion and their appropriate Doctor ****. Just so that you (or I) don't miss him too much.**

**Enjoy and review!**

* * *

Prologue – the Maldovarium, 5144

She had been standing there for half an hour now, just watching. Sipping slowly at a drink she'd bought using stolen credit, Fire stood in a shadowy corner of the room. Well away from the better lit bar area, she watched the other patrons carefully.

These were the co-ordinates for the rendezvous she'd been given in her training; the location of a cache of items that would help her establish herself independently without a home planet to rely on. The Maldovarium hadn't been what she'd been expecting (like amuseum or a bank) but knowing her former leader, that was precisely the point. A slightly seedy intergalactic roadside bar wouldn't be a place that anyone would look – this also had the flipside that she didn;t know what she was supposed to be looking _for._ So she'd sat herself down on one side of the bar with a drink in her hand and waited for a sign.

Mind you, it didn't look like being a watering hole was the only purpose for this establishment.

The bar, stocked with liquors and drinks form all sides of the galaxy, was in the centre of the room and brightly lit, but behind it she could see another, curtained-off area. Various people – seemingly with no connection to each other – had been wandering to this area all night, and coming out again, all withount drinking a drop of alchohol. It was this that had first made her suspicious.

She'd hitched with some freighters off the world the Doctor had dropped her on and as far as Percival; from there she'd picked up a lift from some partygoers heading to Calypso for a holdiay. It had been on Percival that she'd had a rather strange and (so far) unexplained incident.

* * *

Fire had been walking from the space port into the centre of the city. The streets had been crowded with vehicles and people of all species and races, all in a hurry to get to their dest ination. She'd been looking around her – having been off Gallifrey only once or twice before, everything around her was a complete novelty and she coulnd;t help herself staring, craning her neck to look at the sky above.

Next thing she knew she'd collided hard with someone. Caught off her guard, the impact had been enough to send her stumbling back and she'd almost fallen into the person behind her – a tall, blue-mandibled Juthrana. She'd looked around for the person she'd crashed into, but whoever they were, they'd already dissapeared into the crowd.

The Juthrana behind her had tutted – or rather, gave a deep gutteral click and a hiss, it's atteneas twitching.

"You want to be more careful," it said. "Port like this, there are theives everywhere."

Seized by the sudden fear that she'd been pick pocketed, she'd reached a hand up to her earring. The white point star still hung there – but so did something else, apparently dangling off her hair by a small silver chain.

It had been small black disc about the size of a walnut. At first glance it had appeared to be blank, but as she ran her thumb over it tiny ridges had appeared on the surface, coalescing to form what had looked like a tiny symbol of a dragon and the words '_The Maldovarium – est. 5105'_. She had turned the little disc over to examine the other side – and her hearts had almost skipped a beat.

It had had her _name_ on it. Miniscule embossed script had read _'Lady Fire'_ followed by a long series of numbers beneath. Letting out a long breath, she had pocketed the small disc and carried on walking, her mind swirling with questions.

* * *

She'd carried the tiny disc with her ever since, never letting it stray from her person and checking it's continued presence in her pocket almost obsessively. She was still no closer to finding out who had given it to her – but she had come up with a number of theories based on the evidence available to her.

The street had been very busy, enough that if they had been seeking her personally it would have been difficult. To actually make contact they would have had to have planned it, and already known her whereabouts down to the minute. They could be leading into a trap – but she had already known these co-ordinates so somebody planning to give them to her a second time seemed a bit unnecessary, because she was already coming here. And anybody from her future, who had already done the fair amount of planning required, would know that.

It seemed more likely that the mysterious figure was helping her, and that the disc was somehow important it what was about to happen. The reasons for wanting to help her, though, were equally mysterious as the ones for wanting to hurt her. She had honestly considered forgoing the rendezvous altogether, but if the given of the token _had_ been from the future, _her _future specifically, then she couldn't risk creating a paradox.

As she finished the last of her drink she watched one of the bar staff hurry into the curtained area carrying a tray of drinks for whoever was inside, before coming out again a moment later. So, whatever shady dealings were going on behind there, the staff were in on it.

Having waited for nearly two hours without anything happening, she was now reasonably sure that is was the person behind the curtain that she wanted to speak to. She walked over to the bar, putting her glass back on the counter. The barman – a handsome neo-human – smiled at her, and she leant closer to him. Hoping for luck, she lowered her voice, checking that the other patrons were out of earshot.

"If I wanted to go behind there," Fire said in a low voice, nodding at the curtain, "how would I go about it?"

The barman's smile dropped suddenly. For a moment Fire though he was going to throw her out, but then he stepped closer, lowering his voice too.

"Do you have information?"

"Um, no," she said, "I don't. I'm...looking for some things, and I was told to come here." The barman narrowed his eyes at her speculatively, swiping her glass of the bar to clean it.

"Have you got anything to pay him with?" She hesitated, and the man sighed and turned away, clearly deciding that she had a bigger mouth than her pockets could afford.

"Wait," she called after him. "I've got this..." she pulled out the black disc by its silver chain, sliding it onto the bar. His eyes widened and he let out a little hiss of surprise.

"Put that away!" he ordered, eyes flicking from side to side. "I'll take you through."

The barman led her to the area at the back, parting a rich swathe of curtain to revel a small room with lavish furnishings. At a polished wooden table, an enormously fat blue man in sumptuous robes appeared to be conducting business of some kind. Across from him sat a slender-boned reptilian entirely covered in iridescent red scales, which shimmered gently in the candlelight.

"My dear," the blue man laughed jovially, "you know that I – "

"Mr. Maldovar," said the barman. So this was the _owner_, Fire realised – the bar was just a front for the real business going on in here. "Mr Maldovar, there's a customer here to see you,"

"What?" he snapped, turning his head to glare at his unfortunate staff member. "Can't you see I'm in the _middle_ of a deal –"

"She's a black coiner, sir," said the barman, giving his boss a meaningful look. Instantly the blue man's demeanour changed – turning back to his customer with a smile, he politely excused himself.

"I'm afraid this is really _very_ important, my dear, you know that I would hate to interrupt our time together otherwise." The blue man got laboriously to his feet, and the scaled woman followed suit with a long sigh. She exited, brushing past Fire on the way out, and the barman followed, looking pleased to get away.

Fire stepped inside to the curtained room, eyeing the sumptuous decorations warily. The blue man smiled politely at her and gestured for her to take the vacated chair. She sat down, shifting uncomfortably.

"I take it that you are the proprietor?" she said, stilling her fidgeting an aiming for cool aloofness.

"I am," said the man. "Dorium Maldovar, at your service." Fire inclined her head. "I take it that you have a black coin?"

"I have this," she said, drawing out the disc and laying it down on the table.

"Ah, yes, that will do nicely," said Dorium, reaching for it with fat blue fingers. Turning it this way and that in the light, he pulled out a monocle to get a closer look at the reverse face, before setting it down very suddenly. He clicked his fingers and some _thing_ came scampering up to the table; though from that angle she couldn't see what. Dorium handed the coin to it.

"Go and find the matching item," he commanded, and smiled coyly at Fire while they waited for it to return. Unsure exactly what to do in this situation, she elected to do nothing but smile politely back, despite Dorium's attempts to draw her into conversation.

Eventually the thing came back, and Dorium, lifting the box from its hands, laid it on the table in front of her to examine. It was a polished black wooden box about the size of a football, perfectly cubed and completely smooth, without a single blemish or marking.

"What is it?" she asked, trying her best not to sound curious.

"You don't know?" said Dorium, raising his eyebrows and shifting back in his chair.

"I was given the coin by...a friend. I didn't know what it meant," Fire said steadily.

"It's some kind of storage," said Dorium, shaking his head and making his chins wobble. "But we've never been able to get it open..."

"Hmm," she said, regarding the box in front of her. The coin had had her name on it – it had been meant specifically for her, and had reacted only when she touched it. Was the box the same? Testing her theory she reached out a hand and stroked a finger over the smooth wood. Instantly, a split formed right down the middle of the top side, and the two halves slide outwards to reveal the interior.

Both Dorium and Fire peered into the box, frowning. Fire saw what was in there and started to laugh delightedly, reaching in a hand to scoop out the contents. It was a heavy metal ball about the same size as a cricket ball, and covered in circular Gallifreyan markings, the intertwining circles forming an obscure pattern.

"Oh, excellent," she said, picking it up and testing its weight in her hand.

"Can I ask...what is it?" said Dorium, looking up at Fire.

"Just a trinket," she said smoothly. "Valuable, but a bit useless." She was reluctant to trust the blue man with the information of what this _really_ was – transport, perhaps the core of the capsule that had taken her off Gallifrey. After all, Dorium Maldovar _was_ a black-market trader – albeit of the more genteel variety. She slid the ball into her pocket and picked up the box, now much lighter without its contents.

"Was there anything else you would be wanting?" asked Dorium with a practised smile. "The black coin is worth 10,000 credits, you know..." Fire paused, looking back at the large blue man over the table.

"There is one thing," she said slowly, carefully. "I need information on someone, specifically information from the early 21st century..."

"You need only name the name," said Dorium, leaning back and spreading his hands expansively.

"The companions of a man named the Doctor," Fire said, letting go of the last of her caution. Hopefully this man would know something, she thought, watching Dorium's face nervously; she just didn't want word of this getting to the Doctor somehow. The last thing she wanted was for him to be tracking her around the cosmos while she was making her... _enquiries_.

Dorium's eyes widened nervously and he wiped his brow with the back of one hand.

"Ah, the, um, the Doctor..." he said, fidgeting before seeming to make up his mind.

"Is there a problem?" asked Fire, trying her best to sound as aloof and disinterested as possible.

"No, but it will cost you the whole 10,000 credits," he said.

"All of it?" she said, surprised.

"Definite information about the Doctor is rare, my lady, and information of a more personal nature even more so..." Dorium said diplomatically.

"But this is not 'personal information'," said Fire with a cool smile. "This is about his companions."

"If there's one thing you have to understand about the Doctor," Dorium's face was now completely serious, "it is that those two things are one and the same."

Fire just looked at him for a long moment, evaluating his sincerity. The strangely muffled sound of the patrons in the bar wafted in through the gap in the curtains.

"I understand," said Fire eventually. "I'll give you the credits." A satisfied smile broke across Dorium's face.

"Well then," he said. "Come with me..."


	2. Cardiff, 2008

**Author's Note: I'm sorry that this has taken so long to post - over a month! I've had very little time to write recently because I've been back at work, but I promise to (try) to update more often from now on. As often as possible.**

**Flare, (for those who may be getting confused - I know that some people are) is about Fire's more emotional journey towards the Doctor now that's she's actually met him. At this point she doesn't trust him in the slightest. It will follow the format of her meeting those companions who've been in the New Series, as well as some side-shots featuring the Doctor. **

**Please review!**

**Cardiff, 2008**

His was one of the first names on the lists that Maldovar had given to her. This was largely, Fire suspected, because he was a 51st century individual. He would have been known to the black market dealer; perhaps he was even a customer.

Her information on this man was sketchy – he had worked on earth for a number of years, but the documentation of his time there seemed to have been destroyed at some point because there was a conspicuous lack of it. She knew that he was a long-standing associate of the Doctor, connected in various ways to other companions, and affiliated with earth organisations that when they encountered aliens favoured the hostile approach. Kill first, ask questions later. So she knew that the man was dangerous.

That was her other suspected reason for it being first – Maldovar was hoping to get her killed.

_Jack Harkness_.

That was the name in front of her. Alongside a location and a rough time zone of where and when he would most likely be found. _Cardiff, Earth, early 21__st__ century (-2012)._ She had chosen the year of 2008 at random; no particular reason, just seemed like a nice, relatively peaceful year. No alien invasions, as far she could discern, not any reason for Torchwood to be on high alert – after all she only wanted a chat. But first she needed to attract Harkness' attention. In a subtle and non-threatening enough way, she was hoping, that humans wouldn't do as they usually did and rain bullets down at anything vaguely unknown. She needed to give them plenty of warning about her presence.

This was why she was sitting in the Roald Dahl Plass and making her vortex manipulator make an obnoxiously large energy disturbance. If Torchwood were any good whatsoever, they'd notice and come to investigate.

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon in September. It was half-four by now, just before the rush hour, and cold, persistent breeze was blowing, keeping the area free of tourists. She was nursing the dregs of a 'hot chocolate' which appeared to be something of a local delicacy. She had tried coffee earlier in the day and thought it was absolutely disgusting; hot chocolate, however, seemed far more agreeable.

She had just reached the dregs when she noticed a man walking across the plaza. He was dressed in a long grey coat, which flapped around him in the wind, and even from this distance she could tell he was very good-looking. She watched him as he came closer.

"Hello," said the man, sitting down next to her at the table. Her eyes flickered down as she noticed he was subtly aiming a gun at her under the table. "I think you should come with me." Part irritated, part amused, she looked at the man and raised an eyebrow.

"How rude," she said. "Do you treat everyone you meet like this?"

"Don't be coy with me," said the man brusquely, "You've been emitting energy disturbances for the past three hours. Did you think we wouldn't notice?"

"Oh, is it really?" she replied, widening her eyes and trying for an innocent look. "I'm very sorry about that. I must have left the indicator on." On the other side of the table, the man looked at her hard, seemingly unconvinced.

"I don't think so," he said. "You're still coming with me, thank you." He shifted the gun in his grip and aimed it squarely at her. She sighed, looking at it in distaste.

"You don't have to point the gun at me for that. Politely asking would have done the trick just as well, and I wouldn't feel as offended, you know." Harkness squinted at her across the table.

"Well, I prefer to err on the side of caution in these things," he said sarcastically.

"Hmm," she replied, dropping the pretence. "That's reasonable, I suppose. But really, you can put the gun away. I only want to talk to you, though I would prefer not to do that in public."

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked. "That you can't talk about it in public?"

"A friend of yours," she said quietly, looking Harkness in the eye. "The Doctor." Apparently she had said the right thing. Harkness leaned back suddenly – gun never wavering from its position – and regarded her with a new wariness.

"Who says he's a friend of mine?" he said. She rolled her eyes at the attempt at evasion.

"Don't be a fool – the technology I'm carrying is _supremely_ anachronistic. Which _you_, of all people, would know," she sighed dramatically, "Time Agents were never known for their subtlety. I see that hasn't changed." She looked pointedly at the gun.

"So you've done your research," he said coldly. "Well done. Why should I waste my time talking to you? Journalists were never known for _their_ subtlety, either."

"Oh," she blinked. "I'm not a journalist."

"Really?" he said sceptically.

"The Doctor..." she paused, considering her words. She doesn't want to leave a trail, and Torchwood was the kind of organisation that would record her visit. After all, it's not every century one of the only two remaining Time Lords comes for tea. "The Doctor asked me to come with him. To put it bluntly, I wasn't convinced enough of his character to say yes. Hence why I'm here, asking you for your opinion, and being very rudely threatened in the process."

The man opposite her blinked. He didn't look fully convinced by her outburst, but at last he put the gun away, stowing the Webley safely in its holster. Harkness cast a sidelong look at her and smiled, showing perfectly white, straight teeth.

"Back to my place, then?"

* * *

As they descended through the invisible lift, Fire craned her head up to get a good look around. It was an enormous, cavernous space with an industrial and slightly ramshackle feel. As they got closer to the ground, she could identify that the floor space had been divided up into various workspaces, including a sunken area that looked to Fire like a Medbay.

A few people, two men and two women, were sitting or standing at the work stations. One of the men, dressed in a dark suit, stood underneath the lift, waiting for them. The lift stopped smoothly, and Harkness stepped off ahead of her, blocking any exits. The other man held up a small handheld scanner with blue lights on the back.

"You might as well hand over anything dangerous now," said Harkness casually. "We're going to scan you anyway." Fire met his eyes and shrugged.

"I haven't got anything dangerous," she said with a careful smile. "So scan away, by all means."

"Oh, don't say that," snarked a third man, leaning over a railing behind her. She turned her head to look at him – he had short brown hair and a face accompanied by a smirk she suspected she didn't like. "He'll take it literally, you know." Fire didn't respond, but just looked at him neutrally before turning back to face Harkness. Besides, she wasn't entirely sure what the man had implied – another facet of human culture she would have to revise later. She sighed inwardly.

Harkness seemed to ignore the man's comment, gesturing for his suited colleague to commence searching her for weapons. Fire straightened her spine and watched the others from her little platform. The two women had come over to stand a few feet behind the suited man, and one of them, with large dark eyes and a soft face, shifted warily as Fire looked at her. The other seemed more embarrassed than anything, only meeting her gaze briefly before looking back at the smirking man behind her.

"She's clean," shrugged the square-jawed man in front of her, and Fire stepped smartly down from the platform to see Harkness looking slightly mollified. Suddenly the machine let out a series of beeps. Harkness clamped a hand down on her shoulder, face hard, and she stopped dead.

"There's some kind of transport device in her pocket," spoke a voice from her left. Instinctively she didn't look round, holding Harkness' icy blue stare without blinking. "Whatever was giving off those energy readings."

Fire moved her hand to get to her pocket, but abruptly found that the said hand had been forced into the small of her back in a manner which was really _very_ uncomfortable indeed, and she hissed in surprise. She felt a hand push into her pocket and she tensed, ready to throw off the arms that were holding her, and craned her neck up to stare into the furious face of Jack Harkness.

"This is Gallifreyan," he accused, holding up her transporter. "I know the markings. Where the hell did you get this? Who did you steal it from?"

"I didn't steal it," said Fire, glaring at him. "It's mine."

"I think you _did_," he replied, shifting his weight casually and narrowing his eyes. "Did you take it from him?"

"I told you, it's mine."

"It's _Gallifreyan_, it can't be yours." Her head snapped up at these words, and she shifted her weight back against whoever was holding her – the smirking man, apparently.

"Do you have a medic?" she demands. "I saw a Medbay." Harkness shrugged, manipulating the spherical transporter between his fingers and staring at her calculatingly.

"Scan my biology," she ordered. "You'll believe me then."

"Oh really?"

"Yes," she hissed as her arm was pushed further up her back, "yes."

"Why would it make a difference?," Harkness said callously. Fire shifted in the tight grip, scowling at her surroundings. She was reluctant to proclaim her biology in front of all these humans, and she was starting to get seriously annoyed at her treatment –Earth clearly hadn't reached the tourist-friendly stage yet. She doubted Harkness would believe her anyway, but it was worth a try, and she'd temporarily de-activated the shield that would pass her off as human when she'd arrived in Cardiff.

"Because I'm a Time Lady," she bit out, straightening herself as much as she was able and looking Harkness in the eye.

Harkness, _curse him_, had the gall to actually laugh at her, still toying with her vortex transporter.

"The Time Lords are all dead," he said simply. "The Doctor's the only one left."

"Not anymore," Fire replied. Harkness laughed softly, and she saw the large-eyed woman behind him shift almost uncomfortably.

"You're lying again," he said quietly.

"Scan me, and it'll prove I'm not. Run any test you like."

For a long moment Harkness looked at her, and she held his gaze, defiance blazing out of her. Then he made a small gesture for the man to release her, and she jerked herself away from him as he relinquished his grip on her arms, and scowled at his back as he walked down a flight of stairs without even turning to look at her.

She was seriously beginning to regret her decision to come to Torchwood. The treatment she was currently receiving was only confirming her earlier suspicions about why Dorium Maldovar had sent her here.

A moment later the smirking man returned – though this time his face is serious – carrying a compact Anatomic Scanner, the kind they used for research into inter-species breeding, capable of determining species on an almost cell-by-cell basis.

Fire stood perfectly still as the man switched on the machine and pointed it at her. The other, smaller woman sat down at a desk obscured by a bank of screens, watching the results and for a moment there was complete silence. Everyone seemed to hold their breath – even Harkness, who watched the machine intently, one hand resting on the holster of his gun.

Eventually the man operating the machine put it down with a long breath. Fire turned to look at Harkness expectantly, but his face was unreadable as the woman at the desk called him over to look at something.

"That isn't human DNA," Tosh said quietly, almost mesmerized. "Just _look_ at it – three strands, not two, and the internal organs..."

Jack turned back to look at the Time Lady, who was watching him with dark eyes. Unblinking. He wondered if it was a Time Lord trait, that ability to convey such intensity with their eyes – certainly the Doctor had it, and the Master too, in a way. He felt a skitter of dread at the thought of another Time Lord. Trouble, they were, the lot of them.

"So you are what you say you are," he said in a flat tone of voice. The red-headed woman nodded stiffly, standing ramrod straight.

"What's your name? Since you probably know mine." That was another thing Jack had always wanted to know about Time Lords – all the ones he had met used titles, not names, but he had heard the Doctor mention that they _chose_ them, so he wasn't sure how much of it was just preference. Did Time Lords even _use_ proper names?

"Fire," she said coolly, "since you asked so politely."

"Nice," sniggered Owen. "Alien hippie. I like it."

Everyone glared at him, including Fire, who asked what a hippie was.

"Let's not go there," sighed Jack as Owen opened his mouth to respond.

"So who are these...people, then?" Fire looked around at the four others surrounding her.

"This is _Owen_," Jack said, nodding at the sniggering man, "Ianto," the suited man, "Gwen and Toshiko." The large-eyed and delicate-featured women respectively.

"I am pleased to meet you," Fire said formally. "I apologise for the, err...nature of my arrival, but I had to get your attention. Though your hospitality could do with some working on, in truth."

"You can never be too careful," said Jack, clapping his hands together and offering a grim smile. "But we'll try to make up for it. Ianto?"

"I'll make some coffee right away, sir," the smartly dressed man replied. "And what would our...guest...prefer?" He smiled politely at Fire, and she requested hot chocolate, thinking regretfully of the last few mouthfuls she left in the cup at the cafe. Ianto looked almost disgruntled, but turned and dutifully went up the stairs to the kitchen area.

Meanwhile everyone else stood around awkwardly, none of them entirely sure how to start a conversation.

"So..." said Gwen, trying first. "Fire's an interesting name – any...particular...reason...why that is?"

"It was given to me by a nurse in the 31st century," said Fire, a little self-conscious now that the need for icy bravado had passed. "For my hair, apparently."

"Oh, that's...nice. You do have very red hair."

"It's new."

"Oh, you mean it's dyed?" Gwen asked, oddly surprised by the notion of aliens dyeing their hair.

"No," said the Time Lady, looking at her. "It's just new." Gwen narrowed her eyes in confusion, and Jack felt the need to step in and explain.

"Time Lords – and Ladies," he said, glancing at Fire, "can change their bodies completely if they're dying, Gwen. So if she says the hair is new, then it really is...new."

"Huh," said Gwen. "Must be nice."

"Not really," said Fire, "dying is never fun, even if you know that you're going to come back." Gwen's eyes flickered nervously to Jack's for a moment, but he just smiled blandly.

"So, what brings you to Earth?" said Owen, leaning casually over the railings as though this kind of conversation was utterly normal to him.

"I needed to talk to your employer about an old friend of his."

"Yeah? Who?" prodded Owen, unable to resist the opportunity get information on Jack's rather shady past.

"Enough, Owen," commanded Jack, and the younger man scowled and pushed himself away from the railing, stalking off in the opposite direction.

"Jack?" said Gwen softly. "Who is it?" But he just ignored her, jerking his head at the Time Lady to get her to follow him.

They walked over to Jack's office, the others watching them go. He closed the door firmly behind him, closed the blinds for good measure and settled himself behind his desk. Fire remained standing, clasping her hands behind her back, perfectly still.

"So," Jack said, raising his eyebrows. "The Last Time Lady."

Fire smiled grimly. "That's me."

* * *

As soon as Jack and Fire had disappeared behind the door, Gwen went over to Tosh's desk.

"So, who is this doctor then?" Tosh sniffed, her eyes flickering back and forth between the many screens in front of her.

"I'm on it..." she said. "He's mentioned in the founding charter of this place, apparently. As 'the dangerous and alien Sir Doctor, an arraigned traitor to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, a threat to the safety of the Realm, and bringer of chaos, danger and death'."

"Sounds like a nice bloke," muttered Gwen.

"He's popped up a few times in out records, actually," Tosh continued, typing furiously.

"What's this?" said Owen, peering over Tosh's other shoulder. Gwen eyed the cup of coffee clutched in his hand enviously before turning back to the wall of computers.

"So is he an alien or what?" she said.

"He's a time traveller," Tosh explained. "Travels in something called a TARDIS, some kind of time machine probably. Not much info on that, but apparently it looks like a 1960's police telephone box." A picture of said box popped up on one of the screens and they all leant forward to look at it.

"Weird," snorted Owen.

"But he is an alien, yes," said Tosh, looking up at Gwen. Her face sobered suddenly as boxes full of lists appeared on every screen.

"What are they?" asked Owen.

"Lists of the dead," said Tosh quietly.

"Jesus," whispered Gwen, looking at all of the names, the countless people who had died through being involved with this man. Then she spotted something.

"Hang on – Yvonne Hartman. Wasn't she the Head of Torchwood One or something?"

"Yeah."

"But she disappeared at Canary Wharf..."

"The Doctor was there. Arrested, or imprisoned. He escaped, obviously. Everyone from Canary Wharf is listed on here." Gwen shook her head in disbelief.

"So he's an alien, and so is Fire? The same kind."

"Well, he's calls himself a Time Lord, and she said that she was a Time _Lady_, so it stands to reason," Tosh said. "I'm hacking into UNIT's databases now. They seem to have more on him than we do, but he's a bit of a shady character...not much real data on him..." she tailed off, absorbed in the information.

"No wonder Jack looked like he wanted to fill her full of bullets," said Owen, sipping his coffee. "These Time Lords seem bloody dangerous."

"She might not be like that," argued Gwen, feeling that discriminating against Fire on the basis of what someone else had done was a bit unfair. And a bit racist, she supposed. Same thing in the end, wasn't it?

"Really?" said Owen. "How often have we met _nice_ aliens? And besides, you didn't see her scan – that thing doesn't just pick up what cells there are, you know. It identifies them, predicts their capabilities. According to her scan, she could have broken my arms earlier any time she felt like it – and the only reason she didn't is because she wants something." He crossed his arms.

"Jesus, Owen," muttered Gwen. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're out to get you."

"Well in my experience –"

"Oh, shut up. Tosh, Jack mentioned something about Time Lords changing their bodies. What's tht about?"

"Oh," Tosh replied, bringing up a set of pictures on the screens. "Apparently when they're dying their DNA spontaneously _reforms_, just changes right down to a genetic level. Completely new body."

"Who are these blokes then?" Owen asked.

"Different versions of the Doctor," she replied. "11 on record so far." They all took a moment to regard the row of bodies, displayed like an identity parade stretching from left to right; all of them different, faces and heights and clothes, each person displayed owning a different personality.

"How many times do you reckon they can do it?" wondered Gwen. "Is there even a limit?"

"I haven't been able to find anything like that in the data," Tosh said. "Kind of information you'd keep private."

"Nah," said Owen. "There _has_ to be a limit. After a while your DNA would get completely fucked up."

"These are the aliens who _invented_ time travel, Owen." Tosh turned around and faced him. "It's a reasonable extrapolation to say that they could stabilise DNA fairly easily – _we_ can almost do it, and from what we've seen humans are still pretty primitive compared to the rest of the universe."

"So they're an immortal, time travelling species who have a habit of causing chaos and getting lots of people killed, and who are pretty much indestructible physically. Joy."

"There definitely dangerous, yes, but – well, there are only two other confirmed Time Lords that are mentioned, and admittedly one of them is, well, pretty evil by the looks of it – but the other one was a companion to the Doctor. And the Doctor himself has done a lot of good, kind of the same stuff that we do here."

"One man army," muttered Gwen, glancing through a report on the Battle of Canary Wharf.

"Well, that's the other thing," said Tosh. "Jack was right. According to every recent source – and some not so recent – the Time Lords are all dead. Fire and the Doctor – they're the last ones."

"Well, good news at last," muttered Owen darkly. Gwen and Tosh glared at him. "What?"

"Jack seemed pretty surprised to see her," said Gwen.

"More like he wanted to kill her. But now that's there's two of them, they can, you know," he made a rude gesture, "repopulate."

Gwen and Tosh rolled their eyes in exasperation.

* * *

If this morning you had told Jack that he would have been facing the Last Time Lady over his desk at Torchwood, he would have told you to spank his ass and call him Sally.

Or just told you to piss off.

But on the off chance he would have prepared some kind of explosive that could take out a Time Lord permanently.

At the very least he would asked Ianto to pop down to Greggs at get some cake, because the icy stare beaming out of the woman on the other side of the table made Jack feel like he was entertaining the Queen or something. Nonetheless, Jack relaxed himself into his chair and decided not to let the glare or the lack of Battenburg get to him.

"What do you want to know?" he asked. Fire leaned forward, the unnatural sheen of her hair glimmering in the light.

"Everything you can tell me."


End file.
